Learn to enjoy the cherry blossom moments.
This was the title and the sole meaning of an article I was somewhat forced to read recently. Although I will admit that I do tend to be drawn to simple, yet complex and powerful messages like these, I more than likely would have not read this article had it not been shoved in my face by my neurotic mother. This is a woman who takes breaks at work to email me “inspirational messages” and save articles from the Pioneer Press, paper clipped neatly to handwritten notes usually entitled “Melissa should read this”. How cute. A passive aggressive note to remind herself to remind me to read something she feels is valuable. Most of the articles she saves away for me are mundane rants about how I should save my money or stop drinking or stop wasting my time with boys who’s parent’s do not own a cabin or a boat ( No seriously, this has been a requirement for marriage imposed by my mother since I entered high school. Apparently, he’s supposed to be older and also capable of holding the title “Sugar Daddy”. I’m gathering the whole LOVE factor didn’t work out so well in her favor?) OR perhaps she is feeling resentful being the breadwinner of the family. Either way, she feels the need to remind me how important a man with a mission is and how I need a man who can “provide”. I call it old fashioned, she calls it the way. I guess we agree to disagree on this subject. Personally, I’m on a misson to provide for my family with or without a man. I figure a man is just some sugar on top to my life. (And that’s all the sugar I need, Daddy.) ;)
As I read this article I found myself actually READING the article. Hearing the authors words, not just scanning in a disinterested hurry, just to humor my Mother while trying really hard not to look too annoyed, but instead somewhat entertained. Usually I gather enough to summarize and report my findings, hold a five minute conversation and then move on, laughing silently to myself about how our generation gap is SO ridiculous. Or convince myself that my budgeting is perfectly sound. (Okay, maybe it’s not, but I’m not going to give up living my life as I see fit, stowing away for a future you can’t even count on.) (Let me rephrase so I don’t sound like a complete irresponsible jerk: I do what I feel is responsible for my life. I don’t live by someone else’s imposed standards. I save what I can and with my 3-4 day work week, it aint much. So when I’m finally allowed to work full time and can afford daycare on my own, that will be the day I start saving for a rainy day. For now, I just try to get by and not stress myself out too much with things I can’t change.) Annnnnd moving on….
Scan…scan…wait…Reading. Hearing. And now I’m getting teary eyed. “Oh my god, what is this? Am I pregnant?!!?!” I immediately thought to myself. Wait….no. It’s actually an emotionally charged article that is playing directly on my Mommy Card. DAMN YOU! My Mother smiled to herself and left the room. AND DAMN YOU TOO! Being a mother herself, I knew that SHE knew exactly how I was feeling reading this article. It spoke the truth. It spoke what every mother feels, even when you feel like no one, not even your own mother understands. I felt like she was talking directly to me, as if I needed to hear these words and in some ways I think I did. This woman/mother of 3 tiny children was talking about how being a parent can feel like it’s consuming you. You can feel lost in the moment and then in the next moment feel like you can’t wait to just move on to the next phase. She even coined my Mother’s favorite phrase, “This too shall pass.” Alcoholics tend to love that term. Co-dependents too. And now the Mother joins the ranks. Do they have weekly meetings for us too? But it’s true. Every moment, just like every emotion, passes just as fast as it came. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. I feel like I can’t focus on what’s right in front of me. I feel like I’m lost in the fury of an almost 2 year old who just wants his Mommy to play firetrucks with him. But I’m lost……I’m gone, lost in thought, lost in worry. Lost in trying to figure all of this out and it’s really much more simple than that. It’s almost as if children were put here to remind us adults to stop taking shit so seriously. Chill the fuck out. Play. Laugh. And learn how to take a nap for the love of God.
My eyes started to well up in tears when she got a part where she retold a story about a friend who’s 18 year old daughter died after an apparent battle with a terminal illness. She recaptured the tearful father’s eulogy , who spoke of their cherry blossom tree. Every spring this family delighted in the cherry blossoms (as I read this I thought of my own childhood and how we all looked forward to the lilacs blooming every Easter.) But obviously this story didn’t have such a happy ending. The father recited how even though it was still Spring the day their daughter died a bad storm blew all the blossoms off the tree. Moral of the story is blatantly: take the time to cherish your moments. Stop thinking life moves too fast or that you’ll get to it tomorrow or that everything is too damn complicated to tackle. Stop making excuses and instead enjoy, live and embrace the moments you do have with your family, your friends, your children.
It made me think of how overwhelmed I’ve been feeling. Distracted. Sometimes helpless. Spending too much time criticizing my situation or criticizing my own mothering skills. When really I should just accept my situation, stop expecting so much from myself and start loving the moments that really count. Like when my son snuggles up to me when he’s tired at nighttime. When he kisses me goodbye or when he runs in the leaves with the most carefree and happy look plastered on his face all while manically gibbering away in his native language of the stars. I could sit here and blame all my worrying on being a mother or my acute anxiety, but really it's more or less a mindset I need to just let go of. Instead, I need to start accepting that these little tiny moments can be chalked up to the great moments. These memories however minimal they may seem don't have to be so grandiose to be great. Maybe I should start cutting myself some slack and realize I don’t have to have a big fancy house or a husband or every toy imaginable for my son to be a happy and well adjusted child. I can be the mother that I am and we can both be happy well adjusted humans beings.
Towards the end of the article, the author spoke of Halloween, her children growing up and the notion of how time moves SO fast when you have children. I think the saying “Don’t blink or you’ll miss it” kind of holds true in some regards because Lord knows it feels like it was just yesterday when I was in my 53 hour labor with my son and in a few short weeks he’ll be turning 2 years old!!! It’s mind blowing and equally ridiculous to me! Why couldn’t have my two treacherous middle school years gone this fucking fast???! I think that would have been at least more in my favor, instead of this hey my tiny cuddly little baby is now a walking, talking, putting stuffed animals in the toilet toddler and you can’t register any of it because time holds no bars for you lady! (Okay, maybe it’s really not that dramatic, but sometimes it truly feels like it. In an overwhelmed state, it TOTALLY does.) So I think her point was that sometimes it feels hard to slow down when it feels like your children are growing up SO fast. When really it's just that life has taken a very busy turn and instead of having so much time you don't know what to do with, you have all this time full of opportunities for really great moments and memories.
So forget the worries, forget the frantic mother, stressed out I just want a glass of wine so I can chill the eff out and watch Robert Pattinson mack on Kristen Stewart for an hour kind of nights and remember the tiny things that matter more: the butterfly kisses, the bananas thrown purposely on the floor followed by a fit of giggles, the toys that make way too much noise but they're his favorite, the stickers on kitty cats and the hugs that never seem to last long enough, because these are all your "cherry blossom moments". So appreciate them and cherish them because you just never know when these precious moments could come to an end.
